The Dark Lord's Consort
by RedNails1915
Summary: Lord Voldemort has figured out a solution to the problem presented by his horcruxes, most of which have been destroyed by a certain bespectacled wizard. WARNING: This story contains seriously explicit sexual content, much of which is non-consensual. Please read with caution. Note: Mine is the Hollywood version of Voldy. And, naturally, I own absolutely nothing.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm glad to see that this story is getting a number of hits - it's great to know that I've got an audience. Please do read and review - I'd love comments, criticism, and suggestions. Cheers, and happy reading!**

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Chapter 1

He surprised himself by being excited. He sat at the head of the mahogany table in the dining room of Malfoy Manor, his Death Eaters surrounding him, staring at him in their sheepish, solicitous way.

"I leave tonight to carry out the deed," he finished, looking first at Severus on his right, then at Lucius, further down the table to his left. "I am pleased with you for finding her."

He crossed his ankles beneath the table and steepled his long fingers before him, waiting. After several moments, Bellatrix broke the silence, as he knew she would.

"My lord," she said, peering at him anxiously, the bodice of her dress flush with the tabletop as she leaned forward, "of whom do you speak with such importance?"

Lord Voldemort stared into her eager eyes. They were wide and so unguarded that he could see beyond their dark depths to the thoughts she usually kept concealed. Bellatrix was alarmed, terrified of the pronoun he had used.

"I speak of the one who will remedy the disappointment _you_, Bella, have given me." Her eyes bulged, and he grinned into her face, satisfied. "_You_, after all, placed a precious artifact of mine in your vault, where _you_ claimed it would be safe –"

"Forgive me, my lord," she interrupted, "but it was you yourself –"

He did not give warning: in an instant his long, slender wand was in his hand, and Bellatrix was red-faced, choking as he wrapped an invisible cord around her throat.

"_You dare contradict me?_" he hissed, tightening his magical grip so that the whites of Bella's eyes turned red with popped capillaries. She calmed herself, relaxing back into her chair as she retched and gasped, attempting to overcome the throttling by relaxing into it. At last, she bowed her head in admission. He relinquished his hold. "You must learn, dear Bella, to accept the consequences of your actions." As she gasped for breath, he turned his eyes to the rest of the faces around the table before continuing, "You _all_ must learn to accept the consequences."

He glared around at them until each of their postures mimicked Bella's, until he was surrounded by a group of still, bowed figures. He almost broke the spell by laughing at them, at their submission, at their cowardice.

Of course he had told Bellatrix to place the cup in the Lestrange vault at Gringotts. Of course he had ordered them to fight Harry Potter's army before their troops were consolidated. And of course none of them knew that four of his six precious horcruxes had been destroyed by the sniveling brat who still drew breath. It had been a year since the Gringotts break-in, a year since he'd retrieved the diadem and placed in a secure location. A year since he had failed to kill Harry Potter. With only two horcruxes remaining, and with the wizarding world far from conquered, Lord Voldemort needed a new weapon; he needed _her_.

It was Severus, not Lucius, who had located Clara Abigail Solar in Charlottetown six months earlier. Voldemort had not commented at the time, however, he had been following her, observing her, since then. Lucius found the only other one, an old man in Alaska, and Voldemort had dealt with him efficiently after one of his many visits to Clara. She did not yet know him, but he knew _her_ very well indeed. Twenty-seven, slim, and lovely, Clara (Clare to her friends, Clarinda to her family) lead a quiet, simple life in Prince Edward Island. She had a dog, a live-in fiancé, and a job teaching muggle children how to read. She loved to spend time with her family, to ice-skate in the winter, and to take long walks in the summer. Voldemort watched as she and her handsome fiancé planned their wedding, and he laid his own plans carefully before executing them.

First, he visited her parents and her brother. He had thought to kill them as well as the rest of her friends and acquaintances, but some inkling stopped him. The girl seemed compliant enough from his observations –weak, really – but Lord Voldemort enjoyed having some collateral. Instead of killing them, he modified Clara's family's memories. She would not have disappeared suddenly in the night; rather, she had broken her betrothal and had gone to study in Australia. It was easily, efficiently done, just as he knew it would be.

Next, he had to deal with the fiancé, Trevor. He slipped into their apartment and slid into their shadowy bedroom. There she was, asleep with her arms encircling her head. Her chest rose and fell evenly, but she let out a sigh as he drew closer. He paused by her side before turning his attention to Trevor, curled around Clara. A few waves of his wand and Trevor would wake up believing that Clara had broke with him tonight before packing up a few things, which Voldemort quickly vanished, and moving to Australia. As if he believed her to be gone already, Trevor withdrew his protective arm from around Clara and turned over, curling into himself instead. Clara murmured in response, and Voldemort peered into her sleeping face, wishing to pry into the mind it concealed. In the moonlight streaming through the parted curtains, her skin was bright white and inviting. Her dark hair shone, and her lips, so prone to smiles when awake, were pursed as through she were puzzled.

Exhaling rapidly, he stood, reached into an inner pocket and withdrew the syringe he had prepared for this moment. It contained a strong tranquilizer summoned from a nearby pharmacy. Bending low, he pre-emptively shushed the sleeping girl as he slipped the needle into her white neck and depressed the plunger. She gasped and her eyes were suddenly open, staring into his. The room was dark, and Voldemort was sure that she saw nothing looming over her but a vague shadowy figure. Just in case, he placed the palm of his other hand over her mouth, and murmured _shhh_ once again. Her eyes widened before they fluttered and closed.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Her eyes were glued shut, and a beating rhythm throbbed in her temples. Had she really drunk that much wine last night? Rubbing her face into the pillow, she suddenly remembered the dream she'd had – the nightmare. A dark figure stood over her, murmuring. He leaned close, and the moonlight illuminated his face: the flat, shapeless nose, the slightly parted lips, and the intense blue eyes. She sighed and turned over, noting how remarkably soft the sheets were, and reached out an arm to find Trevor, to find some comfort to dilute the memory of that ghastly face. Her hand met nothing but the softness of more sheets.

"Trevor?" she said, opening her eyes with difficulty. Her lids fell immediately back down, and she had to rub at them to open them again. She stared around, frightened and confused. "Trevor?"

She sat in a four-poster bed made of some dark wood and hung with equally dark hangings. On the stone walls of the spacious square room were rich, detailed tapestries and a number of bookcases. A crackling fire in a hearth in front of the bed gently illuminated the room, and two tall, narrow windows showed her an inky night sky.

"Hello?" she called, starting to feel panicked.

Looking down at herself, she was relieved to find her own pajamas still in place.

"Hello?"

She slid out of the bed and immediately regretted it. Her head ached, and so did her back, her shoulders and her stomach. The latter gurgled with hunger, and Clara wondered just how long she had been asleep in this strange place. There were two doors in the room, and just as Clara approached one, the other opened.

"Who are you?" Clara demanded as the figure stepped over the threshold. She was a tall, willowy woman with long silvery-blond hair. Despite her fright, Clara found the sight of another woman comforting.

"I am Narcissa Malfoy," the woman answered, staring at Clara without expression.

"Why am I here? Where am I? Does my family know I'm here? Is – "

"You are in my home, Malfoy Manor. And you are here because the Dark Lord wishes it. Your family knows that you have left and are safe." Narcissa spoke in short, clipped tones, and Clara approached her quickly, tempted to seize her shoulders and shake her.

"Please, none of that makes sense. _Where _am I?"

"You are at the headquarters of the Death Eaters, in Malfoy Manor, in the county of Wiltshire, in England. Does that answer your question more fully?"

"England? How did I get here? And who is the Dark Lord?"

"You will discover soon enough. He has sent me to fetch you to him now that you are awake." Clara stared as the woman closed the door and began to look through a tall wardrobe in one corner. "You will need to change out of those things, of course. And you should like a bath, I think, and some supper."

Narcissa held out a flowing white lace dress and pressed it to Clara's chest. Clara could not help herself: she wrenched the dress from the lady's hand and did indeed grab her by the shoulders.

"I want to go home. I need to talk to my family. You can't keep me here."

Narcissa's lip curled as she spoke.

"You are here, and you'll stay here." She stepped away, towards the other door. "I shall run a bath for you now."

Clara felt filling tears her eyes.

"Please," she gasped at the woman's retreating back, "please. Why am I here? I have nothing. My family has nothing. What have I done?"

"I do not know," came the answer, drifting over Narcissa's shoulder as she stepped into the bathroom. "Perhaps the Dark Lord will see fit to tell you."

After hesitating a moment more, Clara followed the tall woman into the bathroom. There was another tall window in here, and a deep claw-footed tub stood in the centre of the large room, already steaming. After adding something that looked like bath salts to the water, Narcissa left Clara to undress.

The water was heavenly and, as Clara inhaled the sweet-smelling steam, her head cleared, her eyes became more focused, and the aches in her muscles seeped away. She sighed and luxuriated in the bath for a moment before quickly scrubbing herself and stepping out. She wanted to have the meeting with this Dark Lord done with as soon as possible, and being naked in this strange place was highly unsettling. As she toweled off, she suddenly remembered that snakelike face once again, and she shuddered, despite the warmth of the bathing chamber. _No_, she thought to herself, _it can't have been real_. She donned the underthings and the slip Narcissa had left, and went back to the bedroom.

"There now," Narcissa said, beckoning her forward, "you look much better. Come, I'll help you put this on."

Wishing silently that she had some of her own comfortable clothes, Clara allowed Narcissa to pull the lace over her head. The slip she wore was a blushing shade of pink, and the nearly transparent white lace dress matched it beautifully, and lent her a graceful ethereality she had never seen in herself before. She stared in bemusement at herself in a full-length mirror as Narcissa brushed her brown hair until it shone.

Narcissa rang a bell, went to the door, and came back with a tray full of food: rolls of bread, soup, fruit, and a steaming tureen of stew. Clara wolfed half of it down before thinking to offer to share with the silent lady. Narcissa declined, however, and Clara finished the meal, surprised that she could eat under the circumstances.

"You are ready, I think," Narcissa murmured, handing her a napkin and tucking a strand of Clara's hair behind a lacy beret.

"Will you be with me when I meet him?" Clara asked, turning back to the older woman. She wasn't sure why, but she trusted the pale lady. Perhaps it was the gentleness with which she had dressed her, or the worry now etched on her face.

"My orders are only to feed you, to make you presentable and to take you to him."

Clara nodded and followed Narcissa out of the room and down one long corridor, then another, and a third. After ascending two staircases and passing through a door concealed behind a tapestry, and after Clara felt herself quite lost, Narcissa stopped. She seemed to brace herself before knocking on the dark wooden door before her. It slid open with a click and Narcissa stepped inside the shadowy interior, motioning to Clara.

The parlour was small and somber, lit only by a green fire blazing darkly form a torch on the wall. A shadow shifted in one corner, and the form of a man materialized. His back was turned slightly, so that she could only see his bright bald head.

"Here is the lady Clara," Narcissa murmured.

"Thank you, Sissie," said a clear treble voice.

"My lord," Narcissa responded, and she made to back out of the parlour.

Clara rushed to her side and whispered, "No, don't leave." She tried not to look at the shadow while she spoke, but she caught a slight motion from the corner of her eye. Narcissa gave the younger woman a small smile and left, closing the door soundlessly behind her. She reached out to grasp the doorknob, when that cold voice spoke once again, directly behind her.

"Clara," it said, and she felt a cool hand settle on her shoulder. "You shiver – I'll conjure a fire."

Trembling, Clara turned. The face above hers was just as she remembered: terribly pale, with anomalous features and gleaming eyes that stared directly into hers.

"Please," her voice came out in a squeak, and she swallowed before trying again, "please – "

The face loomed closer, as those cool hands slid up and down her arms.

"Hush, my lady," the Dark Lord murmured, drawing her close to an empty hearth. He took what looked like a long, thin stick from the sleeve of his flowing black robe, and flicked it. Suddenly, the same green fire that burned on the torch came to life in the hearth. Clara gasped, and backed up, almost freeing herself from the tall man's grasp.

"Did you do that?" she demanded, staring up at him fearfully.

"All will become clear in time," he replied, putting pressure on her shoulders so that she sat down on a couch before the fire. "Sit down, be calm."

He sat next to her, too close for comfort. She saw that, beneath his white, translucent skin, blue-black veins curled like snakes. She drew further away from him, and saw his eyes flick down to where her hands were clasped, white-knuckled, in her lap.

"I frighten you, my lady."

It wasn't a question.

"Who are you?" she asked, clasping her hands tighter to stop their shaking.

The tall man bowed his head slightly and turned his eyes up to her before offering his hand and saying, "Lord Voldemort at your service, Lady Clara."

She recoiled, leaning backwards, but caught herself at the last moment and placed her hand politely in his. The long, spidery fingers curled swiftly around hers.

"Enchanté," he murmured, pressing her hand slowly to his lips.

"I still don't know who you are, or why I'm here," she said, trying to withdraw her hand.

He chuckled softly before releasing her and settling back against the sofa.

"I am a wizard."

She shook her head, confused, but he held up one of his long hands and went on,

"I am a powerful wizard who requires a powerful young woman such as yourself."

"Power-? I don't have any power. I can't _conjure_ a fire the way you just did. I'm just a – a teacher."

"Ah, but you _are_ powerful, although not in the way that I am."

"Is that all you can do? Make fire?" She had been staring at his instrument, and the question burst out of her. She bit her lips and looked fearfully at him.

The slit-like nostrils flared, but Lord Voldemort obligingly raised the wand. Clara noticed that he fingered the wooden handle lovingly before giving it a soft wave. A flock of bats flew from the tip of the instrument and circled Clara's head. She put up her hands instinctively and let out an _oh_ of surprise, but then she smiled as the bats flew around the room once before soaring out of the window. She had never been frightened of bats, and was almost sorry to watch them fly away.

"What else?" she asked, feeling her sudden smile fade as she looked back at that face. Before she could withdraw the question, he raised his wand again. She and the man were suddenly suspended, enclosed in a globe of something clear and transparent – ice? Just as she reached out to touch the substance, he twirled his wand, and she landed back on the couch.

"Are you impressed?" he asked, never looking away from her face.

"How did you do those things?"

"As I have told you, I am a wizard. I have studied a great deal of magic and I am capable of great feats of power."

His voice had changed. Rather than cold, it was now warm, boastful. It had gone the slightest bit husky as well, descending into lower, honeyed tones. The coolness in his eyes had given way to a laughing pride, and Clara found herself smiling at the man once more.

"And I have the mighty power of teaching children how to read. Thank you for showing me your magic, Lord Voldemort, but I think we should discuss my going home now."

She'd tried to speak casually. He seemed to respond to flattery, and to conversation; perhaps such a hopeful approach would work on him.

"I think not," he said simply. "But I shall explain further, for your benefit. People may be divided into two categories: muggle and wizard. You, my dear lady, fall into a third, previously unknown category."

"How so?" she asked, drawing back from him once more as the coldness seeped into his eyes and voice.

"You see the flames?" he asked. She nodded, feeling their warmth flicker across her face. "They are my own invention. Dark green and lustrous, but not bright. And hotter than anything you've ever imagined. Had I not previously enchanted the fireplace to withstand them, this house would be reduced to cinders in moments."

Without warning, he flicked the wand at her, and Clara was suddenly engulfed in the green blaze. She screamed and fell from the couch. The fall hurt, and as her body registered the shock of the impact, her mind registered that the flames licking her body did not burn her, were not hot at all. She looked up at the Dark Lord, who made another flicking motion that quenched the flames. Clara panted on the ground then, clutching her chest, tears streaming down her face. Lord Voldemort offered her a hand as though to help her up, but Clara got heavily to her feet by leaning against the couch. Her dress was askew, and she felt his eyes on her as she tried to straighten it. Finally, she rubbed the tears roughly from her cheeks and faced him.

"That was ungallant of you," she spat.

He grinned up at her before getting to his feet.

"Ungallant, you say? And how shall you repay such an offence? Shall you _teach _me something?"

As he took a step toward her, Clara forgot her fear for the first time since entering the parlour. The mocking light in his eyes goaded her and as he leaned forward and reached for her arm she slapped him – hard – across the face. The pink imprint of her hand appeared briefly on his white skin. He did not blink, but his nostrils flared once more.

"Discourtesy for discourtesy, then?"

"You – " Clara gasped, trying to catch her breath, "you have no right to berate me _Lord_ Voldemort. You drag me here against my will, you _drug_ me, you force me to sit through a magic show, and then you try to set me on fire!"

She slapped him again, and Voldemort caught her wrist. She cried out as his fingers dug between her tendons and then twisted; he drew her close.

"You desire to know why you are here, then?"

"Let me go!" she shouted, her face paling in pain.

He grasped her chin and forcibly turned her head to face the sofa they had just been seated on – it burst into the green flames and promptly turned to ash. She winced, but the fire was out as quickly as it had appeared.

"You, my dear lady, are _immune_ to magic. _That _is why you are here."

He released her suddenly, pushing her from him so that she stumbled back and sank against a wall.

"You are the solution I have sought these long years."

He advanced on her.

"You, with your wretched muggle parentage –"

He gripped her hair in one hand.

"You, with your magical immunity–"

He pulled her roughly to her feet.

"_You _–_"_

His other hand wrapped around her throat.

" – will be my consort –"

He squeezed her windpipe shut.

" – my concubine."

Her vision began to fade.

"_You_ will bear me sons."

* * *

He released her, and she slumped to the floor in a heap of white lace. His teeth were bared, he realized, and he tried to swallow, to close his eyes, to breathe some calm back into himself. The girl retched quietly, and he turned away in disgust. Clara Abigail Solar was nothing like she had promised to be. He had seen an intelligent, sweet young woman who spent too much time with her family; he had _not_ glimpsed this demanding, determined harpy whose questioning made him want to set the entire manor ablaze.

He went to the window to peer out into the vast grounds surrounding the great house. The bats he had conjured circled the moon, and a slight breeze wafted up from the nearby creek. He breathed deeply, centering himself. The plan had succeeded. He need not worry about a slight difference in her character; Lord Voldemort could handle stubbornness better than anyone. But it wasn't Clara's lack of pliability that bothered him. It was his mistake. His usual adeptness in reading people did not seem to apply here; Clara had eluded him.

She stopped her retching sobs, and Voldemort imagined her getting laboriously to her feet, straightening the luxuriant frock he had procured for her. He had known she would like something so simple, so elegant. And yet it seemed that he had known little else.

A sudden instinct warned him too late. The blow landed on the side of his head, over his left ear. The Dark Lord grunted in pain and felt his shoulder drenched immediately in his own blood. Roaring in anger, he turned to see the hem of her gown sweeping over the threshold, and the andiron she had used to bludgeon him discarded on the floor. He stooped against the windowsill; his blood was draining fast, and he calculated that he'd be unconscious in just a few seconds more. Death might quickly follow. Concentrating on the healing spell took a few moments, but Voldemort was confident in his abilities, even when they were impaired. Almost immediately, he felt back to normal. Better than that: he felt that wonderful sense of purpose that preceded some great act. With a quick glance at the dying fire in the grate, he picked up the andiron and swept from the room to chase down his harpy.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Clara was lost in the manor house, but she kept going down any stairs she came to, hoping to stumble onto the ground floor. As she rushed down darkened hallways studded with paintings, she thought of the Dark Lord. She must have killed him with that hit; she had meant to stun him, or so she told herself. Instead, the blow had opened his skull so that a great jet of blood shot forward to stain the front of her dress. She wiped at it uneasily as she went down yet another staircase.

If only there had been windows in one of these corridors, she could have stopped and peered into one of the rooms to check which floor she was on, but she feared running into someone who would stop her. At last, following a flickering light that danced along the stone walls, she found what must be the entrance hall. Sighing in relief, she ran forward, her hand already outstretched to the door handle just meters away.

"I think not, my girl," a voice whispered.

And he was before her, blocking her way, his white skull showing no signs of her assault. She quailed as, smiling, he raised the andiron she had used to hit him.

"You left this behind." He held it out. "Perhaps you should like to try attacking your opponent when his back is_ not _turned?"

Clara did not take the proffered weapon, but gazed warily into his eyes.

"What, has the lady Clara nothing to say for herself?" He stepped closer. "I thought you more honourable; I had not feared to turn my back to you."

Clara felt her chin lift.

"You think it was dishonourable for me to defend myself against the man who kidnapped me, assaulted me, and threatened to rape me?" She snatched the andiron, relishing its weight before raising it over her shoulder like a club. "Brace yourself, then. I'll be sure to make this one stick."

Voldemort's mouth stretched as he stepped closer. The unblinking eyes fixed on her murderously; the grin had not climbed up his face. He tilted his head to one side, and Clara locked eyes with him.

"I have something to say to you," the Dark Lord whispered, "before you cudgel me once more."

Clara continued to stare at him. His wide, intent eyes seemed to envelop her so that her head swam. Imperceptibly, she felt herself nod.

"12 Vali Drive," he maintained eye contact as he slid the words into her ear, "63 Enman Crescent. 27 Maypoint Road."

A prickling behind her eyelids, and she blinked at last, momentarily shutting him out. When she opened her eyes, his face was no longer in view: it was the burnished steel of another andiron – twin to the one she held fast – before her.

His breath shifted her hair.

"One by one, I will dispatch them. And I shall make you watch as I bash their heads in."

She dropped her weapon – it shattered one of the black tiles beneath her feet.

"No," she said, inhaling rapidly.

"Yes. You will watch as I beat the life from your mother, your father, your brother, your little niece. And I will save Trevor for last, of course, and then we'll see if he's as immune to fire as you are." He gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before continuing. "Unless you wish them dead, you are _mine_, Clara."

She could not exhale – her breath was caught in her lungs, in her throat. Her chest heaved. His hands were on her shoulders, grasping, as her mouth opened and closed ineffectually. She felt herself shudder once, twice, as the core of her body responded to the hands that trailed over her shoulders, up her neck, to her face. His eyes were heavily lidded as he focused them on her once more.

"Ssshhh." It was the same noise of the night before, when he'd inserted the syringe into her neck. He used the pads of his fingers to wipe her tears away. "Breathe now, my girl, you can breathe. In," he lifted his chin and audibly inhaled, and pursed his lips as he exhaled. "And out. You do it now, Clara."

She tried, opening her mouth. The air entered her throat, reached her lungs, and she coughed.

"Again now, in," he slipped his fingers into her hair to draw her head back, straightening her windpipe, "and out. Yes, that's it."

She breathed now, shallow and quick. Voldemort kept hold of her hair with one hand as the other slid up and down her neck, massaging the soreness he had inflicted earlier before settling on her breastbone.

"Push against my hand. Fill your lungs."

As the air poured into her, Clara's head lightened, and her legs crumpled beneath her. Voldemort must have been ready for it. She was gathered in his arms before she could gasp in alarm. He held her to him and walked to the stairs.

"Please," her voice was hoarse, "I – I –"

She swallowed and tried to lift her head from where it rested on his chest.

"Ssshh. We will adjourn to your chamber now, Clara. You are in no state to walk there on your own power."

She shifted then, weakly kicking her legs sideways, trying to escape his hold. She pushed at his chest, wriggled her shoulders, but his strong, wiry arms tightened around her and he bent his head to her ear.

"You have already accepted me, my girl, in exchange for your family. Do not disgrace yourself by struggling now." His eyes shifted from her face, and he stared emptily at her chest, her waist. "And keep breathing. Lord Voldemort wants you conscious."

* * *

The girl was weightless in his arms. She was waif-like, and he relished carrying her prone body through the darkened halls of Malfoy Manor. His anger had subsided into satisfaction; Clara was willful and bold, but a quick threat to kill her family had induced a full-on panic attack. Her rapid descent into terror coupled with her willingness to be lifted from it amused him. He would keep her in this state, breathing when he told her to, sobbing when he told her to, dying when he told her to. He looked down at Clara: grey-faced, she breathed shallowly still, her hands suspended limply against her stomach. All of her previous bombast, her power, was now sapped. She would open to him.

He opened the door to the bedroom and laid Clara gently on the bed. She nodded to him – in thanks, acceptance? He knelt over her and weaved his hands once more in her hair to expose her windpipe.

"Breathe now," he told her softly, "you keep forgetting to breathe, my lady."

He smiled at her, content. Her eyes, still a little glazed, were wide, trying to keep him in focus as he began to caress her neck, then her collarbones, her shoulders, her chest. The skin was supple and warm, with a pulse that beat faintly, rapidly, beneath his hands.

"No," she gasped, trying to push him away.

"Sssshh, my lady. Breathe."

Her chest began to heave again and he firmly repositioned her head, bringing his face close to hers.

"In, and out. Come now. In and out."

"Please," she whispered, "no."

"Open your lungs. Feel my chest, here against yours. Breathe with me. In, out."

Her livid face seemed to slacken a little as she breathed with him. He lay on top of her, his weight evenly distributed across her limbs, pinning her softly. He watched her lips go from white to red. She swallowed once, twice.

"Let me up."

Her voice was stronger now, her gaze direct. Instead, he shifted his weight, sliding one of his robed legs between hers. She gasped, shaking her head.

"No, _please_," she said, pushing at his shoulders.

"You would deny me, Clara. You would have me go to your family instead?"

"No! – please, please just leave me alone."

He shifted again, but she blocked him, defiant once more. The whites of her eyes still had a reddish tinge, but it made the irises a brighter, cleaner blue. He felt his mouth curl back from his teeth as he stared into them. Despite the obstructing thigh, he pressed himself against her. At her sharp intake of breath, he slid securely in place between her legs, and used her confusion to pull up the skirt of her bloodstained dress with one hand and to grasp her wrists with the other.

"No!" She struggled. "Get _off_."

The Dark Lord avoided a well-aimed head-butt and brought his face close to hers again. He stared into her eyes as he had done before, focusing on her dilated pupils as if he were about to perform Legilimency. The resistance building up in her eyes was a moment from bursting or breaking. Either way, he would have her; she had only to realize it.

"Breathe with me now," he said, keeping his voice gentle. "Breathe for me, for _them_."

She gritted her teeth but responded, breathing slowly beneath him. He breathed with her for a minute, two, and continued as he began pressing his hardness against her. She was warm, almost hot, at her centre. Her pelvis lifted infinitesimally when he withdrew.

"That's it, breathe in." She inhaled as he pulled her cotton underwear to her knees.

"And out." He rearranged his own undergarments.

"And in." The hand holding her wrists went to her neck to begin stroking again.

"And hold."

He was at her entrance now. Her eyes seemed to grow larger, the pupils blocking out the blue. He stared into the black, mute depths as he pushed into her. Quivering and slick with the desire and terror he had force-fed her, she wanted him to have her now, just as she tried to push him away. He pressed her into the bed, sliding his length into her fully.

"No." It was a whisper, and the legs twining with his negated it. "God, no."

He withdrew slowly, taking his time to feel her, to enjoy her sensory bewilderment; and he reentered just as slowly, opening her like a flower opens to the sun, gently, gradually.

"Yes," he told her. He would make her enjoy it.

Her body answered this time, in the tilt of her hips, the clenching of her thighs. Her mouth opened deliciously, displaying a sweet mirror of the redness, the readiness, below. A momentary temptation to plunge his tongue into her, to taste the source of the red; he overcame it. It wouldn't do. He pulled her hair back instead and bit into her throat, almost hard enough to draw blood. She bucked at him when he murmured a threat to rip out her windpipe. Her core clenched as he teased her, tortured her with slow, measured thrusts.

She continued to mewl "no" and he began to grind his hips, activating her nucleus, keeping the rhythm measured, building with her. Soon, she began to contract, and he withdrew altogether, leaving her to quake around his absence.

"No," her swollen lips mouthed torpidly. He wanted to slap the word from her mouth, to beat it into her before continuing. To fuck her bloody while she shrieked it. He would leave her now, he thought, leave her to wonder at his sudden disappearance, to shudder with unfulfilled pleasure. He would go.

But he was back inside of her, thrusting rapidly now, startling her into a heavier, harder climax: she moaned as her body held his, clenched around him, and he momentarily lost his grip on the situation, on her. He remedied this by shoving his fingers into her mouth, almost down her throat, to cut off her perverse enjoyment of his ministrations, to cut off the breathing he had so carefully coaxed from her. But she came again as he blocked her windpipe, and so did he.

It was over. He lay heavily on her, in her, his fingers, his member. And she breathed. In and out, around his digits, she breathed. Voldemort felt his jaw clench with the urge to reverse the slowing of her heartbeat; he could kill her now, in this moment, a sacrifice to himself.


	4. Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

He stared at her afterwards before extracting his fingers. They tasted clean, almost aromatic, and their blunt insistence undid her. She could not look at him, not after she'd almost begged him to continue. He tried to withdraw, and pressed her thigh with his hand: her limbs were still entangled with his. Embarrassed to be holding him inside her, she backed away from him quickly and sat up. As she did, his seed poured from her to stain the sheets.

"What, you do not wish to nestle with he who just made _love_ to you?"

The face matched the cruel voice; he grimaced at her, baring his teeth in a nasty smile.

"Get out," she said, covering herself with a pillow. "That wasn't – you're not."

Her thoughts were as fragmented as her words, but he seemed to understand her. He sat next to her on the edge of the bed. She tried to scoot away, but he gripped one of her arms and began stroking her hair.

"You are quite right, my lady. That was not love making, and I am not your precious Trevor." He pulled her hair, bringing her closer, making her wince. "But you relished it."

She was able to look at him again. His expression was blank, the lines around his mouth and eyes tense, but there was lightness in him now, in the set of his thin lips and tone of his voice that betrayed _something_. She acted on instinct, reaching up and placing her hand on the face she had slapped earlier. He was smooth and warm to the touch, and she fingered the snakelike veins curling about his temples. His eyes closed.

"Yes," she told the man, "more than you wanted me to."

And he was gone. Suddenly, wholly, gone. Her hand closed over the warm air, and she almost pitched forward off the bed. She had been leaning toward him, into him, when he'd left.

"Voldemort," she whispered into the empty chamber. It was not a call for him, nor an epithet; it was almost a question. "Vol de mort. He who flies from death."

She looked down at herself. The dress was ripped down the front, still covered in blood, and rumpled. She looked across the room into the mirror and discovered that her face was equally rumpled, but that her eyes were bright, her cheeks red, her hair in a messy nest around her head. She opened her mouth, puzzled. The woman in the mirror had not been raped, as Clara had been; she had been thoroughly fucked, certainly, but she held the flush, the brilliance, of post-orgasm, of mutual enjoyment.

Clara looked away as she climbed down from the bed. She would take another bath; she would rinse the Dark Lord out of her, and she would come up with a plan. She had to stay here with him, that much seemed a given. But, despite his hold over her, she had another card to play.

* * *

He apparated to his underground chamber, where he stared at himself in a glass conjured from nowhere. He looked the same as ever: sharp and pale, his face a snakelike mask that cloaked the reptilian mind behind it. But something had shifted within him. He had not meant to spill himself into her; he had never before allowed that to happen with a woman. She was not at a time to quicken, he knew, and he had intended to give her nothing of himself. No, he had merely intended to _have_ her, to torture her to the borders of pleasure and to leave her without. To break her. To make her enjoy it, want more, beg, and plead for mercy just as she pleaded for fulfillment. And later, only when she supplicated and only when she was ripe, he would fill her.

His plan had failed, and he had filled her not only with his seed but with his pleasure as well.

The mirror broke, shattered, as did the stony wall behind it. The floor caved in, the lights on the walls blazed and set the hangings afire, the pallet in the corner drifted into smoke and Voldemort stood in the midst of the chaos, calm. Everything abruptly resumed its shape and place; his lair was pristinely ordered once more. And then he released another wave of fury, this time feeling his nostrils flare as his possessions were destroyed, then repaired. He took his wand out of his sleeve, where it had been burning his forearm; it longed to be in his hand, to be used for his release. This time, the entire room, perhaps the entire manor, exploded, imploded, and reformed. It took less than a second, and Voldemort was sure that no one would have noticed the building's simultaneous dis/intigration. It could almost have been an imaginary piece of magic, a trick of the mind that was so close to self-destruction that it destroyed its own treacherous conceptions.

He stood unmoved and unmoving, tempted to go on with this repetitious cycle of destructive construction. But he was beginning to tire at last. He had not slept in days, maybe weeks, and now, after the little death that had overcome him minutes earlier, something deep within him yearned for oblivion, for dreamless sleep.

"_Nagini_," he hissed in Parseltongue.

The great serpent was at his feet already, had heard his call before he had enunciated it. She looked up at him coldly, her reptilian yellow eyes distant. He stared at her, at the great expanse of placid hatred that was his deepest emotion, reflected in her: what his soul really had been.

_And still is_, he thought.

He did not need a wand or even magic to perform the split of the mind that would allow him to sleep and remain awake at once. He broke his mind in two uneven pieces, and placed one, the smaller more concentrated one that contained his conscious, grasping mind, inside the snake. The other part, the larger, sluggish, more needy subconscious, directed his body onto the narrow pallet and into the numb realms of sleep. He watched through the eyes of the snake as his body heaved a sigh – of relief? surely not of contentment – and turned over.

He hated himself asleep, especially from the viewpoint of this cold, detached body. He suffered a fleeting temptation to slither up to the thin, pathetic figure, to strangle it and ingest it whole. What would happen if he consumed himself? He would be like the snake that eats its own tail; he would only confront more of himself than he could possibly stomach.


End file.
